Fussy Eater turns Iron Chef

Kitchen Stadium is not the only battleground in cookery. My own dinner table has been the site of many pitched battles between parents and the Fussy Eater, now 13.

Fat, gristle, anything resembling fat or gristle, asparagus tips, anything slimy, onions, seafood, chicken legs, chicken thighs and nearly everything that is not a wiener or gravy could be and has been the ignition point for dinnertime combat.

Tears are shed, voices hoarsened and heels dug in when the parental menu does not meet with approval, though I must admit he is becoming more adventurous with age.

As a dad I am perfectly comfortable serving wieners every night, but my position has not attracted consensus among the parents involved. Moms don’t give a rat’s patootie what other people think, I learned.

Paradoxically, the Fussy Eater — let’s call him Dylan because that is his name — is a huge fan of the television program Iron Chef, either American or the original dubbed Japanese version.

He is as mesmerized by Battle Carrot as he is by Battle Sea Cucumber, only one of which has any real likelihood of passing his tightly pursed lips.

But — parents, listen closely — when he was made Iron Chef for an evening at home, he touched salmon, cooked salmon and ate salmon, even the raw dish.

The TV show gleefully presents chefs with a difficult theme ingredient and challenges them to make five top-notch courses, often including dessert, with that ingredient as the star component. (The bacon ice cream was a memorable gambit to create a sweet from an unlikely source.)

In that spirit Dylan himself selected sockeye salmon for his theme ingredient. Two days of menu planning ensued and a large sockeye fillet was acquired.

First course was to be salmon tartare. We trimmed and chopped the salmon and haggled about the elements of the dish.

Capers were a non-starter, quickly replaced by finely diced dill pickles. Green onion was permitted along with sea salt and pepper and a drizzle of my private stash of unfiltered olive oil.

“Okay, you need to taste it so we can adjust the seasoning,” I said.

Dylan looked me over for signs of mirth. None were present.

“It’s not cooked,” he protested. I explained to the incredulous chef that tartare is a raw dish.

“But we don’t know where that salmon has been,” he countered.

“It’s been in the ocean,” I said. “Taste it.”

Dylan fought all his natural instincts and placed raw fish in his mouth.

“It needs more pepper.”

The tartare was served in hefty bourbon glasses as the first course.

The boy then set his creative genius to work on a starch featuring salmon. It would be poached in white wine and lemon juice, then flaked and tossed with pesto rice. The pesto is made every summer from the bounty of the front porch herb garden and frozen into green hockey pucks for use through the winter. One such puck was dropped into the rice and water for cooking.

There was some speculation from the kitchen staff (me) that the pesto, which packs a wallop of flavour, could overpower the sockeye.

But the chef had his way and the result was worthy of a repeat engagement: The bright flavours of the wine and lemon helped the salmon stand up very nicely to the basil, parsley and garlic in the rice.

The rice and salmon were packed into a ramekin and tipped onto the middle of the plate to create a little round fortress. Very fancy.

Finally the main. Simply pan-seared with the skin on and garnished with a little sea salt.

Why mess with the perfection of the world’s greatest fish, the chef reasoned.

The kitchen staff prepared a side of oven-roasted cauliflower with a dusting of curry powder.

Plating and dinner service were elegant and widely appreciated. Every dish scored well with the judges. More astounding, the chef, who had only tasted his first shrimp about a month ago, tried fish three ways and ate everything without gagging, including half of the tartare. (It didn’t go to waste.)

Preparing dinner in Kitchen Stadium with a junior chef is a little more work than doing it yourself, but it was actually a lot of fun, that is if arguing and cooking is your idea of fun.

Better, it opened up a whole world of food possibilities for the Fussy Eater. His older brother The Garburator has never turned his head from food.

Another way to nip Fussy Eaters in the bud is to involve the children in the Kitchen at an early age. Even if it’s just watching from the high chair. Let them experience the whole sensory panoply of the cooking process. De-Mystify what ends up on their plate. I’ve not had to change anything in the way I cook other than maybe dialing down the spiciness to make food that my kids will eat. I let them see the food as it goes through the process of prep, cooking & plating. I let them smell the seasonings and spices as I use them. Of course the next step is to make Sous Chefs out of them, and eventually get them to cook dinner for you.